


A Trigger, A Spark

by nameless980



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game), Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Genderfluid OC, Had to fit it into the Parahumans Lore, Multi, Planeswalker!Taylor, Scion Failed to cut off the Blind Eternities, Very much MtG AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29819028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nameless980/pseuds/nameless980
Summary: The Locker Incident was a Trigger, but that Trigger prompted an Ignition. Now a month later, that ignition has become a small fire, growing in strength and power under the tutelage of another. Unfortunately, it will have far reaching, drastic consequences that will give a lot unwanted answers to questions humanity has been asking for years. And all Taylor wanted was to survive high school, become a hero, and maybe join Gatewatch.
Relationships: Amy Dallon | Panacea | Red Queen/Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver, Gideon Jura and OC, Gideon Jura/Chandra Nalaar
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	A Trigger, A Spark

**Author's Note:**

> This is some heavy AU compared to actual MTG lore, as adapted to better fit with both my plans and the Parahumans lore. Depending on feedback, I'll either explain the basic gist of the changes in a note, or go with my original plan of sharing it through flashbacks. As a side note, Nil is pretty much how I envision I would be like as a planeswalker.

Daniel Hebert was a simple man, he liked to think. Tall and lanky, with a far-too-round, weak chin and a balding head, he even looked the part- just a simple suburban dad in one of the worst cities in America. Not-so-slowly falling apart, if he’d ever admit it to himself, but a simple man, nonetheless. When his wife died, he’d admittedly withdrawn into himself, unable to cope with the idea of a life without her. He’d failed his daughter, he knew. The locker incident back in January, and her subsequent disappearance for three and a half weeks afterwards, had merely confirmed that, and served as a wake up call. But, he contemplated two months later, he was never so far gone that, when he could hear her voice and that of an unknown male, he didn’t react. Didn’t get worried. No, he heard that, and his first thought was, ‘ _And I told dad I didn’t need a shotgun._ ’ Boy was he wrong, it seemed. But, at the same time, he’d like to think that if she was in danger, she’d have screamed, and he knew from prior experience that he’d have heard that and woken up. 

So, the man sighed, got up, and proceeded to pull the handgun out of the gun safe by his bed. Sue him. Just because he didn’t see a point in a shotgun didn’t mean he didn’t recognize the need for _something_ , he grew up in Brockton Bay, and he knew what it had become. While he doubted anything was going on without consent, Danny was also fully aware that he might be about to have to scare off a half dressed teenage boy. While the shotgun would have been preferable, the handgun would get the job done just as well if properly handled. Checking that it was loaded and had a bullet in the chamber, Danny walked down the stairs, careful not to make a sound as he walked the creaky floor. When he slowly opened the door, he mused to himself that he wasn’t sure why he’d accepted the gifted firearm, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t what he was thinking. Now, he was honestly glad that he had the pistol for a different reason entirely.

Sure enough, they were there, talking, and as he got closer he had been able to hear what was being said. "Hold it, chica, take it easy, yeah? Don’t wanna go too deep," the mystery male admonished, a playful confidence to his voice as he spoke. If he had any foreign accent, it only came out when speaking the lone Spanish word; otherwise he sounded like he was from down south- Alabama maybe? He wasn’t sure he cared. He was at the door, now, and he’d decided to slowly open the door. Carefully, he cracked the door, poking his head out. What greeted him, however. . . he wasn’t sure what he had expected, but he was 100% certain that this wasn’t it.

They were fully clothed, for one, and he supposed he was thankful for that. The male was older, although by how much he couldn’t tell. The man was somewhere in between stocky and lean, at least that was the impression given through the baggy clothes. The long sleeved shirt and gloves hid his skin, but the sleeveless jacket’s hood was down, revealing blond hair, kept long enough to reach the back of his neck if it wasn’t cut almost like a mohawk. His ears were pierced in multiple places, including a pair of larger holes in each earlobe- gauges, the kids called them. He had smaller gauges above the larger ones. His jacket was interesting, in that the dark grey cloth was cut in a way that showed layers on the right shoulder, each one a bit longer than the layer above it. His cargos were black with white specs around the ankles, almost as though they were paint flecks. On his feet were steel toed boots, scuffed and worn with age. He glanced up, though, blinking past the gun to meet Danny’s eyes with his own. “Taylor. Looks like we woke up your dad.” 

And boy did _that_ draw attention to the elephant in the room. Taylor had always been tall and skinny, but in the near-month that she’d disappeared she’d begun gaining hints of muscle, with a lot of definition. The tank top and sweatpants she wore revealed plenty of it, as well as a mass of scar tissue that was still healing along her right shoulder. What was more important at the moment, however, was that she was holding a mass of blue energy. “What? Fuck!” she snapped, her glasses-covered eyes blinking as she seemingly lost concentration, the energy dissipated almost violently. She panted heavily, catching her breath as she turned to face her father. “Uhh. . . hi?” She offered sheepishly. No, not sheepishly. Nervously. 

Danny blinked at this, eyeing his gun, before lowering the weapon slightly and speaking. “I came out here because I was worried. . .now I’m still worried but for a different reason.”

“Perfectly understandable,” the male said calmly, his eyebrow quirked lightly. “I’m more than willing to explain, but this is a conversation best had indoors. Preferably already sitting down. May I come in?”

Danny blinked at that, then sighed. “Suppose you might as well. C’mon in. Coffee?”

  
  


Nil sat down on the chair, across from Mr. Hebert. He noticed that Taylor seemed only slightly uncomfortable, hardly surprising from what they’d talked about in between training sessions, and back on Innistrad before that. He sighed softly, eyes taking in the two of them as they sat on the couch. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hebert. My name is Nil Kimbrough,” he introduced himself, taking a sip of coffee shortly after.

“Danny Hebert. How do you know my daughter?” Danny was straight to the point, Nil noted. He liked that. Wasting time with more than polite pleasantries always seemed to be an insult to all parties involved, and Nil, for all his hatred of arrogance, was not the type to easily take insults.

"The answer in entirety is complicated, and you'll likely find it lacking without the context, so bear with me, fair?" When Danny nodded, Nil began.

"To start with, you've already established that multiverse theory was accurate on this plane, although you call them timelines and worlds, right?” Nil inquired. Danny nodded again, making Nil nod as well. “Well. I’m from another plane. Or maybe, a different timeline of this plane? I dunno- until I met Taylor, the idea of travelling to other timelines wasn’t even a pipedream,” he explained. “We don’t have parahumans back home. What we do have, is something I’ve found on every plane I’ve ever been on. Mages.”

“What, like magic?” Danny interjected.

“Yep. It’s not that surprising, honestly. Magic at its most simply described is the manipulation of an energy known as mana. . .in most cases.”

“But not all.”

It was Taylor who spoke up next, albeit haltingly, and it was Taylor who continued when Danny blinked in obvious confusion. “No, some spells use mana. Spells that I excel at, according to Nil. But there are other forms of energy that mages manipulate, most notably aether.”

Nil nodded. “Everyone can be a mage if they can find a way to learn how to manipulate aether or mana. But, there’s a subset of mages in there, that your daughter and I fall into. We call ourselves planeswalkers. From what Taylor’s told me, it’s not unlike your parahumans. We even have our own version of the Corona Potentia, just not so physical. It’s part of our soul, not our biology, and we call it a spark.”

“So what. . . it triggered? The locker triggered it?”

“Nil says it’s called ignition, not a trigger. But yeah. . . and I triggered, too.”

Nil sighed, watching Danny’s face turn about fifty shades paler, knowing all too well the implications of that word. “Taylor, I know you’ve been nervous about this talk, but there is such a thing as too much at once.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Which should tell you exactly how much slower you should have gone it.”


End file.
